Mercedes and Kingspan have announced to end their ties mutually after facing some heavy backlash last week. Both the brands had signed a contract ahead of last week’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. There was a backlash after knowing that the company had involvement in the Grenfell Tower incident that caught fire back in 2017, which killed 72 people.
Grenfell United, which consists of survivors and grieving family members wrote to Toto Wolff (Mercedes F1 boss) and expressed their repugnance at this deal.
An open letter was also written by the UK government minister Michael Gove to Wolff and requested him to reassess the contract and warned that the British government could change advertising rules for motorsport.
Wolff mentioned on Saturday that Mercedes could re-evaluate its association with Kingspan, and the team announced on Wednesday that the agreement has been ended by mutual consent.
A statement from Mercedes reads, “The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team and Kingspan today announced that they have mutually agreed to end their partnership.
“Announced last week, the new partnership included Kingspan chairing a new Sustainability Working Group for the team and aimed to deliver carbon reductions through their leading-edge environmentally sustainable solutions for the team’s future campus.
“However, both parties have subsequently concluded that it is not appropriate for the partnership to move forward at the current point in time, notwithstanding its intended positive impact, and we have therefore agreed that it will be discontinued with immediate effect, ” the statement concluded.
Kingspan on the other hand stated, “Deeply aware of the sensitivities raised in recent days, and so we have jointly agreed that it’s not appropriate to move forward at the current point in time.”
The company even tried to answer some of the backlashes it faced saying that they had no hand in the Grenfell Tower incident.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the wholly unacceptable historical conduct and emails which emerged throughout the Inquiry discovery process. We have sincerely apologised for these actions by a small group of employees at our Kingspan Insulation UK business. This in no way reflects Kingspan’s culture or values.”
Grenfell United mentioned that Mercedes did the right thing by disassociating themselves from Kingspan.